The Dunwich horrorLovecraft, H. P. (Howard Phillips)
Science
The Dunwich horror
Lovecraft, H. P. (Howard Phillips)
American fiction -- 20th century; Fantasy fiction; Horror tales
Today learned the Aklo for the Sabaoth, [it ran] which did not
like, it being answerable from the hill and not from the air. That
upstairs more ahead of me than I had thought it would be, and is
not like to have much earth brain. Shot Elam Hutchins's collie
Jack when he went to bite me, and Elam says he would kill me if he
dast. I guess he won't. Grandfather kept me saying the Dho formula
last night, and I think I saw the inner city at the 2 magnetic
poles. I shall go to those poles when the earth is cleared off, if
I can't break through with the Dho-Hna formula when I commit it.
They from the air told me at Sabbat that it will be years before I
can clear off the earth, and I guess Grandfather will be dead then,
so I shall have to learn all the angles of the planes and all the
formulas between the Yr and the Nhhngr. They from outside will
help, but they can not take body without human blood. That upstairs
looks it will have the right cast. I can see it a little when I
make the Yoorish sign or blow the power of Ibn Ghazi at it, and it
is near like them at May Eve on the Hill. The other face may wear
off some. I wonder how I shall look when the earth is cleared and
there are no earth beings on it. He that came with the Aklo Sabaoth
said I may be transfigured, there being much of outside to work on.
Morning found Dr. Armitage in a cold sweat of terror and a frenzy of
wakeful concentration. He had not left the manuscript all night, but
sat at his table under the electric light turning page after page
with shaking hands as fast as he could decipher the cryptic text. He
had nervously telephoned his wife he would not be home, and when she
brought him a breakfast from the house he could scarcely dispose of a
mouthful. All that day he read on, now and then halted maddeningly as
a reapplication of the complex key became necessary. Lunch and dinner
were brought him, but he ate only the smallest fraction of either.
Toward the middle of the next night he drowsed off in his chair, but
soon woke out of a tangle of nightmares almost as hideous as the truths
and menaces to man's existence that he had uncovered.
On the morning of September fourth Professor Rice and Dr. Morgan
insisted on seeing him for a while, and departed trembling and
ashen-gray. That evening he went to bed, but slept only fitfully.
Wednesday--the next day--he was back at the manuscript, and began to
take copious notes both from the current sections and from those he had
already deciphered. In the small hours of that night he slept a little
in an easy-chair in his office, but was at the manuscript again before
dawn. Some time before noon his physician, Dr. Hartwell, called to see
him and insisted that he cease work. He refused, intimating that it was
of the most vital importance for him to complete the reading of the
diary, and promising an explanation in due course of time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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